updated 08:00 am EST, Wed November 18, 2009

ATI Radeon HD 5970 boasts 3200 cores

AMD on Wednesday bragged of the graphics performance crown with the launch of the ATI Radeon HD 5970. The card uses two 5800 series chipsets on one card to provide the most performance possible. While each has the speed of a 5850 with a 725MHz primary clock speed and 1GHz GDDR5 memory, the 3,200 stream (effects) processors, 160 texture units and 2GB of memory give it as much performance as two 5850s but in half the space.

Two 5970s can be combined in CrossFire mode for even more performance in those games that support it.

The part is based on the newer 40 nanometer manufacturing process and as a consequence consumes relatively little power at idle, at 42W. DirectX 11 (and OpenGL 3 equivalent) feature support remains intact, as does support for Eyefinity with three displays and OpenCL computing on those platforms that recognize it. Two dual-link DVI ports and one DisplayPort output are common on reference boards.

Multiple cards should be available today from third parties such as ASUS, Diamond and MSI at about $599. PC builders should also have access to the technology for their own in-house designs.

How long will it take for Apple

Mac Support

The proprietary DirectX is for windows only. Since this card is optimized for DirectX, I doubt it would work so well for mac if it's ported over.

How does Apple get support for a card like this? Get a bunch of gamers using their system. It's either that, or appeal to professionals using software tools that would truly benefit from a performance boost like this.

I'd love to be able to play some of my mac games this would actually help with a card with this much power (once I buy a Mac Pro). I'd love to have it for instant Aperture adjustments. I'd love to have it for much faster real-time rendering when doing 3D modeling. I'd love to have it for the ridiculously layered and detailed CAD documents I work on (no more regen delays). I'd love to have it for working in BIMs that make you view all architectural, structural, electrical, mechanical, and civil engineering info when designing large complexes like hospitals.

Will I get support for these uses? If the track record says anything about it, not anytime soon.

Hackintosh community

One benefit of having a healthy Hackintosh community is that many cards that aren't directly supported by Apple have been made to work through modifying the card's ROM. in some cases it's relatively simple, but you need to be willing to spend some time researching on osx86.org and then modifying the ROM (which often requires Windows). Finally, you may have to also add an extension to OS X. All in all, it's not too difficult for those so inclined. I've done it, and I'm only a moderate geek.

I expect that this card is too new for someone to have hacked it, but I also expect that it will be hacked surprisingly quickly... say, in a month or so.